How Big Winemakers Are Poisoning Americans
Wine is just grapes, RIGHT? A deeper dive into what's really in your glass of wine
DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A DOCTOR, AND NOTHING THAT I SAY BELOW IS A MEDICAL CLAIM OF ANY SORT.
Remember when we were kids (talking to my 80s/early 90s babies), and we would go around the house putting Mr. Yuck stickers on any household cleaning product we could find? I’m not sure why there was a big PR push in elementary schools in the late 80s to Keep Kids From Drinking Bleach (was this an epidemic at the time?), but I have vivid memories of opening the kitchen sink cabinet, and proudly slapping those Mr. Yuck stickers on everything that was toxic. Bleach - Mr. Yuck! Soap - no way, Mr. Yuck! Laundry Detergent, Shampoo, Ant Killer, Fertilizer for our lawn - all got Mr. Yuck stickers! The message was super clear: we don’t eat poison. If Hobby Lobby was in charge, they would have had farmhouse wood signs galore that would read “As for me and my house, we will not eat fertilizer and bleach.”
If Mr. Yuck stickers were still a thing today, I would gladly walk down every wine aisle, of every major retailer and slap a Mr. Yuck sticker on the bottles. Why? Because they contain poison!
Dramatic or truth? I’ll let you decide.
I shared a post on my Instagram last week that was 1000% inspired by listening to RFK Jr talk about the epidemic of SICKNESS in America that our FOOD is causing us. Nearly HALF the American population today suffers from at least one chronic disease - with things like hypertension, heart disease, & arthritis leading the way. We are, effectively, the sickest country in the world. Which makes me wonder, “what is making us so sick?”
While I have no intentions of diving into all the theories and reasons to answer that question, I wanted to take a glimpse behind the curtain of one particular industry - winemaking - that is surely a symptom of a much bigger problem with Big Food & Big Ag (along with the government agencies meant to regulate them) happening here. This sounds like a big Erin Brockovich type feat, but honestly since becoming a mom, suddenly I look at the world, at ingredients in our food, MUCH differently. Motherhood has a tendency to do this - because we care about how we are nurturing those sweet babies. So surely, this post drafted in a fit of passion, might piss some people I love off, but as a friend gently reminded me, “People who love each other can still piss each other off. Doesn’t mean they will stop loving you.”
The underlying heart behind the passion is a deep disdain for the standards, lack of regulations, & completely unchecked farming practices that are allowed for American-made food (but food in many areas as well). For the sake of this article too, know that when I say ‘food’, I’m typically encompassing all of food & beverage, and will specifically call out wine when it is information solely related to that industry. In general, American food & beverage, what is accepted, how it’s grown and processed - is all corrupt by and large as I’ve come to discover. There are some distinctions though that I wanted to deep dive into a bit, around specifically the wine industry because the area I’ve been working in for the last four years.
WHY DOES WINE GET A FREE PASS - THE HISTORY OF WHO REGULATES ALCOHOL & WHY THEY GET DIFFERENT STANDARDS
In 1967, Congress & President Johnson passed a bill called the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act, in which it declared:
Informed consumers are essential to the fair and efficient functioning of a free market economy.
Regarding the bill, President Johnson went on to justify it’s need for consumers saying, "The Government must do its share to ensure the shopper against deception, to remedy confusion, and to eliminate questionable practices."
The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act required all "consumer commodities" to have a label. Well, what is a consumer commodity? According to Wikipedia, this act defined it as:
Under the act, consumer commodities were defined as any food, drug, device, or cosmetic [emphasis added], that is produced or distributed for sale through retails sales/agencies for consumption by individuals or used by individuals for the purpose of personal care. Further, labels were defined as any written, printed, or graphic matter affixed to a consumer commodity or affixed to a package containing any consumer commodities.
I would have thought a consumer commodity also included beverages, but nope. So who regulates beverages, specifically alcohol? It is quite interesting to me that because of this Act, our water bottles are required to have a nutrition and ingredient label, but not our wine & spirits.
Quick Google search shows that it is the Alcohol Tobacco Tax & Trade Bureau (aka TTB), which is overseen by the Federal Alcohol Administration (FAA). Pulled straight from the TTB.gov website itself, the FAA Act says in regards to their requirement to protect consumers around the requirement of labels & ingredients for alcoholic beverage products above 7% ABV:
To protect consumers, FAA Act provisions:
Ensure that labeling and advertising of alcohol beverages provide adequate information to the consumer concerning the identity and quality of the product;
Require that alcohol beverages bottlers and importers must have an approved certificate of label approval (COLA) or an exemption certificate before the product may be sold in the United States
Prevent misleading labeling or advertising that may result in consumer deception regarding the product.
At first glance, you’re like GREAT - sounds like we’ve got Big Beverage & Uncle Sam looking out for us! They don’t allow anything misleading on the label that will dupe me - wine is just grapes, I knew it! But maybe it’s just me, but the additional 250 ingredients that the FDA (how many chefs can we have in one kitchen, goodness?!) approves and allows, makes me really start to scratch my head.
Ingredients like dried fish bladders, milk products, ferrocyanide, and sweetener concentrates (mega-purple) TO ME seem like I want to know they’re in there because at minimum, my body doesn’t really process dairy products well, so I need to know when I’m consuming dairy if it’s going to make me feel sick. I spend tons of time flipping random things over in the grocery store searching for hidden ingredients shoved into our consumable goods - but at least those are listed! I can easily identify the pesto or chips or whatever that have milk products listed and I always put them back on the shelf until I find the one that is dairy free.
I would never in a million years assume there’s dairy in my WINE! But without an ingredient label, how would I even know for sure?
Obviously, the more concerning line items are words with cyanide in them. Feels like that should qualify as “consumer deception” don’t you think?
And this list of ingredients that are allowed, and FDA approved, in mass-produced wine, doesn’t even address residue from the harmful, chemical-laced, synthetic pesticides that are used to grow the grapes. EWG just released its annual list called the Dirty Dozen, where they test 46 different types of produce and publish, IN ORDER, the produce that contains the MOST harmful chemicals. Well, grapes jumped from #8 on the list last year, to #4 this year! (Strawberries were listed on #1 FYI - I’ll link the entire list here for you to see what else you should always buy organic).
The only ingredient that is required to be put on wine labels is SULFITES.
So let’s talk for a minute about sulfites - what they are, and what they do - because in my conversations with women who are sensitive & reactive to wine (especially red wine), sulfites usually tend to be the fall guy…and I just don’t think they’re the sole culprit.
So sulfites are naturally occurring in all wines. I’m always super confused when I talk about the Clean-Crafted wine that I help people swap to, and they respond with “Oh I only drink sulfite-free wine”. I guess maybe it’s possible, and is the equivalent of someone drinking a decaf cup of coffee? But since they are naturally occurring, the wine would have to go through a lot of extra processing to remove sulfites.
I’ve learned from working in the wine industry, that the AMOUNT of sulfites is really the differentiating factor between whether sulfites are causing a reaction in you. In America, the legal amount of sulfites allowed in a wine is 350ppm (parts per million). In Europe, it’s 250ppm. Many natural, or low intervention wines, have about 50-100ppm. I’ve been told by people that know better than me, that the body can’t even detect sulfites until 150ppm (again, not a medical claim - just the messenger here). It’s worth noting that foods like dried mangoes, all also contain natural sulfites around the same amounts - and most people are able to consume those without weird side effects. So, that leaves you with the question - is it the sulfites causing you to wake up with brain fog, have uninterrupted sleep, get raging headaches, and a slew of other frustrating side effects that we probably can’t even see - or is it possibly one of the other 249 (mostly synthetic) ingredients allowed?
MEGA-PURPLE, SUGAR, & GLYPHOSATE
Confession: I always used to drink my red wine through a straw. I know, I know, it’s not the classiest looking thing that would be Real Housewives-approved, but my dentist told me long ago that red wine and coffee would stain my teeth the most, and after bleaching my teeth - I always have done everything in my power to avoid the big staining culprits (note: I’ve heard that the ‘straw killing the sea turtles thing is a PR hoax’ - let me know in the comments below if you think we should dive into this because Make Straws Available Again is a campaign I could get behind, if it really is a hoax).
Well, turns out, that the primary culprit for Red Wine Mouth is a synthetic dye added to wine called Mega Purple. I had no idea that this was even a thing, but I’ve come to learn that it’s used in MOST red wines - regardless of price point - because of it’s ability to alter the wine to fit consumer demand. What is Mega Purple? In lamens terms, it’s derived from Rubired grapes and those Rubired grapes are made into their own wine concentrate with a TON of residual sugar (about 68% according to sources), and then used in small doses (since it’s highly concentrated) to adjust color & taste of a red wine. There’s a consumer trend that people associate DARKER red wines with higher quality, and so winemakers use mega purple to give the consumer what they want. Mega Purple is one of the biggest contributors to additional hidden sugar content in wines. Being from the greater PNW where many wines are made, local winemakers will oftentimes push back when you ask them, “so do you add sugar to your wines?” They commonly poo-poo this question, saying “adding sugar to wine is illegal in most parts of the world”. Sure, that’s true, but there’s loopholes FOR DAYS in that FDA-approved list that adds TONS of synthetic ingredients that ARE effectively SUGAR compounds or artificial sweeteners - it’s just not listed as SUGAR. So sure, I guess if we’re splitting hairs (and unless it’s a sparkling wine product where adding sugar IS legal), then “there’s no added sugar”. But the average consumer loves sugar, so mega-purple gets added and they just don’t have to tell you it’s in there.
Effectively, winemakers have adopted (and been allowed to adopt) a don’t ask, don’t tell policy when it comes to what’s in their products. Happy wife, happy life.
In addition, they also have gobs of actual poison - glyphosate - making it’s way right into your evening glass of Pinot Noir.
Glyphosate is the active ingredient used in Round Up - the chemical pesticide most widely used to spray crops. If, and when you see perfectly manicured vineyards, you should ask how they got to be that way? Because low intervention (read CLEAN) wine should be growing in WILD vineyards, not perfectly manicured ones.
There are MANY cases on the harmful effects of glyphosate for consumers (and the laborers). In fact, the NIH conducted a study in 2022 looking at the toxic effects of glyphosate on the human nervous system, concluding:
The information summarized in the present review indicates that exposure to glyphosate, AMPA, or GBH could induce several toxic effects on the nervous system of all species studied. Exposure to glyphosate during the early stages of life can severely affect normal cell development by deregulating some of the signaling pathways involved in this process, leading to alterations in differentiation, neuronal growth, migration, and myelination. Glyphosate also seems to exert a significant toxic effect on neurotransmission, with the glutamatergic system being one of the most affected systems…Likewise, the results analyzed herein reflect the capacity of glyphosate to induce oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, and mitochondrial dysfunction, processes that lead to neuronal death by autophagia, necrosis, or apoptosis, as well as the appearance of behavioral and motor disorders. Although there are important discrepancies between the findings analyzed in this review, it is unequivocal that exposure to glyphosate, alone or in commercial formulations, can produce important alterations in the structure and function of the nervous system of humans, rodents, fish, and invertebrate animals.
The evidence is very well known amongst the Big Ag community, and so DAMNING, that it has been outlawed and banned in most western countries (Canada, Italy, Mexico to name a few). The intent of the product is to kill anything that may interfere with the grow season of the crop - like caterpillars eating the grapes. I fully understand the need and desire for a farmer, whose livelihood is built on what they produce each year, to want to protect their crops. The PROBLEM is that Round Up is not the solution. But it is fast, efficient, cheap, and allowed - but it’s also making people extremely sick1.
Increase your bottom line knowing you’re actively making people sick - does that not unlock a moral compass within anyone else? Feels like corporate greed at it’s finest.
And before you go thinking, “Oh well I’m sure that’s true of two buck chuck, but not my beloved [insert whatever man’s name you’ve fallen in love with] - hold tight to your pantyhose because this is common practice from top to bottom in the wine world.
Did you know that nearly 80% of ALL wines sold globally (yes, even the ones with the cute French chateau label on them) are owned & made by 5 companies? They are massive conglomerates like E&J Gallo & Constellation, that are a part of what’s referred to as “The Big Five”, that own many many different labels…but they’re all being made together, using similar growing & bottling practices (oh yeah, we haven’t even gotten to that part yet - but growing & bottling requirements are different…so that’s a whole other set of what’s allowed too - yet another loophole for Big Wine to grow their bottom line). And wine is BIG BUSINESS ($80billion at last recorded estimate), so these conglomerates that own the likes of Sutter, Josh, Franzia, Kendall Jackson, Meiomi & beyond, they are in it to make the most money. Capitalism at its finest right?
Except when it’s unchecked.
That’s really the problem we’re staring down. Between the FAA Act, the TTB, the FDA, NOBODY is requiring these winemakers to disclose how they’re making their product, what’s going inside of it, how much, has it been tested, etc and people are getting SICK - thinking best case scenario they’ve developed a new sensitivity to SULFITES or worst case, “getting older” and “ever since kids” has suddenly changed their digestive programming and they can’t tolerate even a casual glass of wine anymore without side effects.
My question remains the same every time - is it the sulfites or is it the poison & synthetics ingredients?
WHAT’S IN A LABEL - KNOW THE DIFFERENCE TO HELP YOU NAVIGATE THE GROCERY STORE AISLE
I remember when our oldest kiddo was an infant, and we began making friends with our Mommy & Me groups. These friends, and couples, who were in our same season of life, became our total lifeline in the those tender early years of becoming parents and trying to figure out what the heck we were doing.
One of the things we noticed really quickly though, was that many of us were speaking slightly different languages. Inevitably, we’d be gathered around the kitchen island or dinner table and they’d casually drop, “Oh Caden’s been sleeping through the night since he was 6 weeks. He only wakes up to feed at midnight and 3 am but otherwise just sleeps right through the night.”
Blake and I would always just look at each other like huh?? That is NOT sleeping through the night in our family! For us, to say our baby was sleeping through the night meant that we put him down to sleep in his crib at 6pm, and we did not see that baby until the dawn of a new day - preferably at an hour society also deemed was normal morning. If I had to get up and out of bed to go FEED the baby at any god-awful hour other than MORNING, well, then we were not “sleeping through the night”.
Same goes for labels in the wine world, so let’s break them down so that you can better understand what language everyone is speaking, and how you can make your way through the grocery aisle with ease.
Organic
If a wine label has the word “organic” on it, you know that no chemicals were used in the vineyard during growing. Slight problemo with this one is that as the demand for cleaner wine is on the rise, many vineyards are converting SECTIONS of their commercial vineyard to organic practices. So YES, they’re not spraying THOOOOSEEEE rows with pesticides, but it would be like having a can of spray paint and not taping or blocking out the area, and saying it’s a perfect science. OVERSPRAY is VERY COMMON due to the natural elements of growing a crop outdoors - like wind. Not to mention, where that organic section is within the vineyard matters because rain run off in the SOIL (which we know the glyphosate seeps into) is super common. I’ve also seen a lot of wines have on their label, “Made with organic grapes” - again, that’s BETTER than non-organic (and means up to 85% of the wine was made with organic grapes) but only applies to their grape-growing process. It speaks NOTHING to what’s added to the wine during the fermentation, winemaking & bottling processes. It is important to note that if the wine says ‘organic’, that does mean it has to have less than 100ppm sulfites - so that’s a win for sulfite-sensitive peeps (assuming you’ve been tested specifically for that). The USDA offers the certification for organic, so unless it says Certified Organic WINE, it’s a slight of hand marketing tool IMO. I would categorize this for the most part as a “sleep through the night with only a couple of feedings” type vibe.
Biodynamic
This is an up-and-coming buzz word I feel like, that I know the least about. Overall it means that there are no chemicals in the vineyard OR cellar, and they are aimed at creating healthy ecosystems. This is basically what I would consider the traditional way to make wine, that we all think is how we’re still doing things. The way our ancestors made wine is using biodynamic practices. These wines are organic by default, just based on their farming, growing & bottling practices. A wine that is organic is not necessarily biodynamic, but a wine that is biodynamic is by default, organic. Many natural wines (that’s a whole category) are biodynamic and while I don’t know a ton about the natural wine world as a category, the common feedback I hear is that they’re known for tasting a little more “funky”.
Vegan
This one may surprise some people. Shouldn’t all wine be vegan because it’s just grapes? NOPE. If your wine label doesn’t have VEGAN called out specifically, it is safe to assume animal products have been used in the wine making process. Like I stated above in my ingredient breakdown, common ones are fish bladder for the fining process & dairy products. This one grosses me out the most, and is probably the most shocking to browse the aisle and see how FEW wines actually say Vegan. It was something that my eyes were opened to for that short 6 month-ish period where I decided I was going to go vegan, after watching some Netflix special on meat practices in America. Barf city.
Clean-Crafted
This is a trademarked, sort of tongue twister word that has been introduced to the marketplace by Scout & Cellar. Critics of the clean wine movement oftentimes poke holes in the word “clean” not being defined, and Big Wine wants to drum up doubt that it’s simply a greenwashing term meant to falsely trick consumers into believing that somehow NOT all wine isn’t clean. Except it’s freaking NOT! Cyanide and ammonium phosphate in undisclosed amounts along with synthetic dyes do not fit my clean living lifestyle. So the word Clean-Crafted was trademarked as a way to silence the critics and define what “sleeping through the night” actually means. If you see this on a label, it means everything was sustainably grown in healthy soil, no artificial processing aids or sugars (in the growing process or cellar), & independently lab-tested to ensure it meets this standard. That last pillar - the lab tested qualifier - is literally the game changing difference for why it’s the only standard I will accept. In some of the Scout & Cellar consultant education, they’ve said that only 1% of all wines meet the Clean-Crafted standard. I know from attending several trainings led by Food & Wine’s Somm of the Year (who works in-house full-time for Scout & Cellar as their Director of Product & Education), that many of the wines from growing partners around the world, do not make it to the site for consumers because they fail the glyphosate testing. Popular online consumer testers like Mamavation, have done their own op-ed pieces about the legitimacy of a clean-crafted claim - both in ingredients & testing for harmful synthetics. I’d encourage to check it out for your own research (she also tests the coffee they sell for mold).
SO WHAT DO WE DO?
I meet SO MANY women, and friends, who have sadly thrown the baby out with the bath water. They’ll come over to my house, I casually ask if they want to join me in sharing a glass or bottle of my fave rosé or Pinot Noir, and they’ll decline politely with the added, “I just can’t drink wine anymore - it makes me feel like garbage”.
To which I always acknowledge & empathize with because that was me too. One glass of red wine, and I would wake up in the middle of the night, sleep terrible, and start my morning the next day so sluggish and brain foggy. I thought, “ sheesh these kids have ruined me in more ways than one”. I’M KIDDING AGAIN JAN - children are obviously a gift from the Lord. ;)
There are several moves that are happening globally, and locally, that are making waves about what’s really in your wine & the cleaner alternatives available. Education is starting to finally bubble up on the harmful effects of things like glyphosate on our crops & ultimately in our glasses, with people like RFK Jr sounding the alarm and horns, advocating for better practices and the 100% ban from use on our agriculture.
Because the reality is these farmers (I use that word OH SO LIGHTLY because mass produced wine is more like a MACHINE…not FAMILY FARMER anymore) are trying to keep up with customer demand. And if they’re not regulated or checked on their growing & bottling practices, then who really cares about the consumer? We have this FALSE picture due to really good marketing, that we are grabbing a bottle of our favorite Cab from the top shelf of our local Whole Foods even, or Target, and that a sweet farmer in Napa Valley, whose family estate has been around for generations, produced it.
Except, all these wines - most everything you see on the shelves of any of your grocery stores - are McDonaldized wines.
It’s like the equivalent of THINKING you’re buying a bottle of fresh squeezed orange juice, but really what’s inside is just doctored up Sunny D. Sure, some would still categorize that as OJ, but anyone who is CONSCIOUS about what they eat, what they drink & consume, would be REAL frustrated to know (I think) that they’re just buying real expensive Kool Aid.
We’re being duped people, and these wine conglomerates are winning.
The ball is left in our court. We have to do our own research (exhausting I know). Hopefully this has been a cliff notes deep dive for you to at least get you starting to learn about what’s really in your wine & what the cleaner alternatives are instead. I believe that knowledge is power, and with the right knowledge in hand, we are equipped to make decisions that fit our lifestyle preferences. But without the necessary information readily out there, available to consume, this has become a greedy game of hide & seek that Big Wine is currently crushing us at.
The regulating agencies aren’t going to do crap to educate, empower, or protect us. They’ve shown that & proven it to be true. Corporate corruption is rampant where there is big business to be had. The Big 5 pay a lot of money to DC lobbyists to ensure that we can keep playing this cloak and dagger game with wine consumers by not including ingredient labels and not being required to test for, figure out, or label nutrition facts (yeah that Paleo or Keto diet you’ve been trying to nail down for awhile? Ain’t working if you’re still consuming mass-produced wine).
There is hope, and there is good news amongst a bleak peak behind the ugly curtain of the wine world. Brands like Scout Wild & Avaline are making cleaner, better for you options available to the average consumer in normal retail locations. Other companies like Dry Farm Wines2 & Scout & Cellar are getting loud about what’s really in wine, and offering online access to wines that have low intervention, are specifically tested for glyphosate, and are actually producing their wines from the farmers who are aligning their growing practices with better-than-EU standards. They are making wine, tending their vineyards & soil the way that traditional winemakers in the old world always have. Regenerative farming is becoming a buzz word that documentaries like Live to 100 & The Biggest Little Farm are bringing to our streaming services, so that people can start waking up to what’s really in their products & how they can make better choices.
At the end of the day, sure, I could throw the baby out with the bath water and just quit wine altogether. Some critic for sure will argue that “alcohol is a toxin regardless” to which I just roll my eyes, and give them the thumbs up emoji response. You sound boring Jan. ;) You’re right, wine - even when grown, bottled & made using the cleanest practices & standards - is still alcohol at the end of the day. I highly recommend examining your relationship with alcohol all the time - I come from a family where addiction has been quite destructive and real - so I’m very aware and keen on never promoting a “mommy needs wine” type culture, especially in the online spaces I lead & belong.
But I love wine.
I love the act of gathering, sharing something around a campfire or dinner table. I know that when wine is opened, stories get told, connections grow deeper, and people find freedom as the walls come down, just one glass in. Truth comes out, and togetherness leaves our cups filled, long after we’ve drank what’s really inside.
So when I go to grab a bottle of wine to enjoy with my husband on Marriage Monday or celebrate a special moment or ordinary Tuesday with a friend, I feel good reaching for any bottle from my most trusted brand, which for me is Scout & Cellar.3
It feels like not that big of a request to just KNOW what’s really in what I’m choosing to drink. Is it Sunny D or is it fresh squeezed orange juice? Am I going to McDonalds or Whole Foods?
Advocating for brand, and product, transparency has become a big passion of mine and after writing this article I think I might take on a new title of Wine Activist - fighting for the rights of moms across America who just want to enjoy that glass of rosé, without questioning if they’re drinking a bottle of Mr. Yuck. It shouldn’t be this hard, in my opinion, if the appropriate people do their jobs better. But until or unless that happens at the Uncle Sam level, I’ll keep sounding the alarm’s myself, offering cleaner better for you options, and advocating for change.
Because I think it matters.
That’s the whole story (for now), and I’m sticking to it.
for extra credit, Google cancer rates in Napa Valley and read through some of those findings - yikes
Listen to this podcast episode from Molly Sims’ Lipstick on the Rim show, featuring the Dry Farms CEO - it’s quite eye opening!
Yes, this is an affiliate link as I have chosen to be a part of their brand advocate community based on the farmers they’re supporting, the standards in the consumer marketplace they stand for, & the opportunity to share that with others but please know I’m not talking about this because I make a small commission on your clicks through that link. That is MINUSCULE in the grand scheme of this advocacy and work. My hope is to point you to resources for you to explore on your own, if cleaner, better for you products is something you’re on the hunt for too